So he turned to Antoine, who had remained seated in front of a block he was engraving.

It was the one which represented Lise reading in her garden, for he was ever taking it in hand again and touching it up in his desire to emphasise his indication of the girl's awakening to intelligence and life.
"So you engrave, I see," said Hyacinthe.

"Well, since I renounced versification--a little poem I had begun on the End of Woman--because words seemed to me so gross and cumbersome, mere paving-stones as it were, fit for labourers, I myself have had some idea of trying drawing, and perhaps engraving too.

But what drawing can portray the mystery which lies beyond life, the only sphere that has any real existence and importance for us?
With what pencil and on what kind of plate could one depict it?
We should need something impalpable, something unheard of, which would merely suggest the essence of things and beings." "But it's only by material means," Antoine somewhat roughly replied, "that art can render the essence of things and beings, that is, their full significance as we understand it.

To transcribe life is my great passion; and briefly life is the only mystery that there is in things and beings.